Latest Entry
Apr 29, 2009 Windows 7
XP’s old looks have first been beautified with Vista’s sleek, shiny looks, and now it’s time to upgrade them with Windows 7’s set of visual improvements.
With Vista’s failure to capture the market’s attention, Microsoft didn’t want to reiterate that mistake and did its best to make out of Windows 7 what Vista should have been: a success. Even if 7 has raked a plethora of accolades from well known, trustworthy testers, there is still a percentage of skeptics that, although long for the sleek looks of the newer OSes released by Microsoft, cling with the utmost stubbornness to old, reliable XP, which for many has become obsolete or is rapidly heading towards this state.
The Windows 7 beauty session for your plain-looking but great-running XP takes 10 steps in which you have to opt for different enhancements, addressing aspects such as screen resolution, DPI setting, installation type, general system user interface for the Windows 7 look, system applications’ UI, Windows interface, installation of third-party apps necessary to bring XP’s looks closer to the latest OS fashion trend. Desktop enhancements and user account personalization are also present in the transformation procedure.
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Recent Entries
Apr 27, 2009 Firefox
Mozilla is moving ahead with the development of the next iteration of its open-source browser. But even with Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 just around the corner, Mozilla continues to build new features into the successor of Firefox 3.0. The latest modification to the browser involves the addition of restore closed tabs and windows capabilities to Firefox 3.5 Beta 4. Codename Shiretoko will allow users to open the last three closed tabs and windows in its default configuration. Opening recently closed tabs and windows is an option that Mozilla has built into the History menu.
“I’m happy to announce the landing of Undo Close Window. This adds a menu & keyboard shortcut for reopening your previously closed windows. By default we store 3 windows (though sometimes more due to special cases involving pop-up windows),” revealed Mozilla’s Paul A. O’Shannessy. Handling recently closed windows was a project that debuted initially in Firefox 2.0 via a few APIs, but which failed to materialize. Only in Firefox 3.5 will the feature be fully implemented.
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Apr 27, 2009 Opera
A new build of Opera 10.0 is now available for download. The browser continues to be in Alpha stage, but advanced to Build 1456 at the end of the past week. The release is now offered through Opera’s autoupdate mechanism, and, as such, users will need to manually download and install the browser. Only the versions for Windows and Mac OS X are live at this point in time, with the Linux variant expected to drop this week. One of the enhancements delivered with the latest version compared to precursor builds is automated crash reporting.
Users will no longer have to manually upload crash reports to the bug tracking system. However the feature only works on Windows so far, but it will also be tailored to Mac OS X and Linux in the future.
“When Opera crashes, it will open a dialog box which asks whether you want to report the crash to us. Clicking on “Options” lets you fill in some details, such as what you were doing when the crash occurred. There is also an option to restart Opera (enabled by default), so that you can get it up and running again right away,” revealed a member of the Opera team.
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Apr 27, 2009 Expression Blend
With the delivery of Expression Blend 3 Preview, Microsoft mentioned SketchFlow, described by Bruce Kyle, an architect evangelist for Microsoft in the Developer & Platform Evangelism team, as “a rapid prototyping capability that makes it easy to communicate design intent to stakeholders.” SketchFlow is a tool set up to add on to Expression Blend 3 and to streamline the early stages or project design by allowing developers to literally sketch out their ideas. S. Somasegar, senior vice president, Developer Division, emphasized that SketchFlow was focused on the concept behind a certain project rather than on its visual identity and that, as such, the tool offered “sketch-styled” controls.
However, even if only sketches, the prototypes do not suffer from the perspective of functionality, and all ideas can be seamlessly “upgraded” to high-fidelity controls when devs choose to do so.
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Apr 25, 2009 Chrome
Google made two new versions of its open source browser available for download this week. When it comes down to the Google Chrome Stable channel, the latest update offered by the Mountain View-based search giant takes the browser up to version 1.0.154.59. Google indicated that the refresh was necessary in order to provide a resolve to a critical security vulnerability: CVE-2009-1340 ChromeHTML protocol handler same-origin bypass. The Mountain View company revealed that the vulnerability allowed for universal cross-site scripting (UXSS) with no user interaction involved, in specific scenarios, in the eventuality that the flaw was successfully exploited.
“An error in handling URLs with a chromehtml: protocol could allow an attacker to run scripts of his choosing on any page or enumerate files on the local disk under certain conditions,” Mark Larson, Google Chrome program manager, stated.
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Apr 24, 2009 Ubuntu
Right on schedule, the folks at Canonical released the latest version of Ubuntu Linux this morning. Ubuntu 9.04 adds a number of new features including a revamped notification system, support for the Ext4 file system, and updated applications like Firefox 3 and OpenOffice.org 3.0.
Canonical also worked hard on system performance, and Ubuntu 9.04 should boot up faster and feature more efficient suspend and reume features. The operating system can also intelligentally switchbetween WiFi and 3G environments using a number of 3G cards.
Ubuntu 9.04 comes in several different flavors. There’s a server edition, a desktop edition, and a Netbook Remix edition that’s optimized for mini-laptops with Intel Atom processors and low resolution displays.
Kubuntu 9.04 is also available for users who prefer the KDE desktop environment to Gnome. Many of the basic packages in Ubuntu and Kubuntu are the same. Mythbuntu, which comes preloaded with the popular MythTV media center application, has also been updated to version 9.04.
Other versions including Xubuntu (based on the Xfce desktop environment) and Edubuntu (with a focus on educational software) should be updated to 9.04 soon.
Apr 24, 2009 freeware
Windows Movie Maker is a free Microsoft utility for Windows that lets you create and edit video files. But for some reason, the most recent versions of Movie Maker for Windows Vista and 7 don’t have all the features and transitions you can find on earlier builds.
So one developer decided to take matters into his own hands and create a portable version of Windows Movie Maker based on Movie Maker 2.1. You can run Portable Windows Movie Maker on any computer with Windows XP, Vista, or 7. And since it’s portable, you can run it from a USB flash drive or a folder on your hard drive without installing it.
As an added bonus, the developer added some extra transitions and effects.
Apr 24, 2009 Windows 7
Just a day after information on Windows 7 Build 7100 made it into the wild, the actual bits for the fully fledged Release Candidate of the next iteration of the Windows client have been leaked and are now available for download via torrent trackers. Meanwhile, Microsoft has yet to confirm or deny Build 7100 as the RC of Windows 7, but Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, did explain that
the radio silence from Redmond was catalyzed by the amount of work and focus on the development process. But while the Redmond company is keeping mum on Windows 7 Build 7100, any user with a BitTorrent client can already start playing with the Release Candidate bits.
So far only the 32-bit version of Windows 7 RC Build 6.1.7100.0.winmain_win7rc .090421-1700 was leaked to torrent websites. The download weighs in at 2.35 GB and is available as an ISO image that has to be burnt on a DVD. As was the case with the vast majority of previous pre-release development milestones of Windows 7, the leaked RC Build 71000 offers the Ultimate SKU of the operating system. Testers can continue using the Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 product keys in order to activate the RC Build 7100 bits.
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Apr 24, 2009 Utilities
It’s always nice to read some exciting news from the people who develop our favorite apps, and the team over at
Malwarebytes had a big
announcement in their forums yesterday morning. In less than a year and a half, Anti-Malware has removed more than one billion infected items from users’ computers.
That’s an impressive figure, and a strong testimony to the quality of their software. Anti-malware has been an indispensable part of my technician’s toolkit since it was released and it keeps getting better. The app is so popular now that it’s hard to believe I considered it one of my “lesser-known malware apps” back in July of last year.
To get your hands on a copy of a truly great free application, head over to their site and download it now.
Apr 23, 2009 Windows 7
Microsoft is making headway with the development of Windows 7 and closing on the availability of the first and only Release Candidate of the operating system. In this regard, the Redmond company has reportedly already signed off on Windows 7 RC. 7100.0.winmain_win7rc.090421-1700 is the full version of the Release Candidate bits for the next iteration of Windows. Microsoft has of course offered no official confirmation on the build string for Windows 7 RC Build 7100. The Redmond company has also not commented on self-leaked information that it has already made Windows 7 RC Build
7100 available to partners, and that MSDN and TechNet subscribers would be receiving the green light for downloads by the end of April with the public release planned for the first week in May.
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